


A Hawk's Nightmare

by DelektorskiChick



Series: The Nightmare Series [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:23:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1396234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DelektorskiChick/pseuds/DelektorskiChick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever wonder how Clint wound up telling Loki all of Natasha's secrets? My take on that, plus the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everything in the windowless room was awash in blue. The walls, the floor, the… the bed. Clint shuddered, goose bumps rising from the cold air breezing over his naked back. The rational part of his mind, the part that was locked away, was screaming at him to run, to fight, to do _something_ to get out of this situation. But his body wasn't listening to his pleas.

"Well, well. It appears I won't have to hunt you down to punish you after all."

His brain shrieked as he felt Loki's hand ghost over the back of his neck. But other than leaning further into the touch like a contented cat, his body did nothing. Loki's thin, cool fingers gripped his chin and turned Clint's face to his.

"How did you fight the Tessarect's hold earlier? Hmm?" The cold eyes searched his face. Clint heard his own voice answer.

"I don't know, sir."

Loki slapped him with enough force to turn Clint's shoulders to the side. But Loki's anger seemed to be directed more at himself than the blue-eyed man before him.

"No, no, of course not. You wouldn't know." A glint came to Loki's eye that rational Clint _knew_ was a sign of no good. "But _he_ does." Clint only had half a second to process Loki's meaning before the blue veil over everything was lifted and he fell, crashing to all fours. He gasped in huge lungfuls of air as pain assailed him from all sides. That was the only part of being locked away his rational self merely hated, rather than loathed with every fiber of his being. He couldn't feel pain, exhaustion or hunger. He felt all three now as Loki fisted a hand in Clint's short hair and pulled him to his knees.

"How are you fighting the Tessarect's hold?"

"Go… to… _hell_!" Clint wheezed, using Loki's grip on his hair as leverage to aim a kick at the god's knee. Pain lanced through him as Loki dropped him, then hit him across the ribs with the butt of his scepter. Clint lay on his side on the floor, trying to breathe as Loki stood, gloating, above him.

"A moment's freedom and that is all you have to say?" Loki tsked. "Fool." He used the toe of his boot to roll the smaller man onto his back, placing his boot on his throat and the tip of his scepter on his bare chest. "I'll ask you again, mortal, how are you fighting the Tessarect's power? Or, rather, what are you thinking of while under its command? I know that there must be _some_ small part of your pathetic little mind that stays aware through it all. What does it think about?"

Clint pushed his true thoughts into the same mental corner that he was always shoved into and thought of other innocuous things. Things that he didn't really think about while locked away, but something this monster would believe he thought of.

He thought of the physics of flight, of the paths his arrows would take because of those physics. He thought of the angles for the perfect shot, something that would drive almost any other man insane. He thought of the perfect geometry that was in his bows, the thing that made them so lethal. He thought of _anything_ but what he really did think about.

"Now now, Agent Barton, none of that. Save those party tricks for a roadside magician." Loki used the scepter's power to pin Clint to the floor, then touched two fingers to the archer's left temple. "Let's have a look at what those dirty little thoughts really are."

Clint heard a groan roll through the room as Loki's invasion of his mind really began. It was low, full of pleasure, and obscene. It took until Loki's chuckle that he realized the sound was coming from his own mouth. It filled him with shame.

"Let's see… _Ooh_." Now Loki moaned. "What do we have here?"

His memories that he'd been attempting to hide shot to the fore of his brain. The first time he'd hit a bull's eye with only a glance. The day that Coulson brought him in to SHIELD. The first time he'd (successfully) flown and landed one of the Quinjets. The first time his test scores had flabbergasted Fury. The first time he'd seen Natasha.

Natasha…

Images of her flashed over his vision. Her agility in a fight. Her eyes flashing with anger. Her hair whipping around her face as she fought. Her smile at one of his dry jokes. Her skin-

With a yell, Clint wrenched his head away from Loki's hand and he lay, panting, on the bare concrete floor, eyes closed. Natasha still flashed across the backs of his eyelids, but only for himself. The first external thing he became aware of was Loki's laughter.

"Oh, who is this? No, don't get up." He'd noticed Clint attempting to rise. "I doubt I'll get anything more from you like this."

Clint tried to scream as his brain was pushed back into its little box in the corner of his mind and the blue veil descended again. But his body instantly stopped all struggles, all attempts to scream.

"There now, much better." Loki adjusted his armor as he allowed Clint to rise. "Now, pet, who _is_ this woman, and what does she mean to you?"

.0.o.0.o.0.

Rational Clint sat in the corner of his mind he was allowed, a shudder rolling through him. The shudder was caused by what Natasha would do to him when she found out he was the one who'd told Loki all her secrets. And she would find out. That's what Nat did.

"Thank you, pet. That wasn't so hard now, was it?" Clint felt his head shake no, but all he wanted to do was scream and strangle Loki. "Now then, where were we before that _lovely_ little peep show of the redhead? Ah. Yes. Your punishment."

Clint started screaming in his mind again. No. He wasn't going to make him do that again. Anything but-

"Down on your knees, Agent Barton."

He tried to fight the rest of his brain for control, but it was worthless.

"Let's see if you remember your lessons from last night."

Loki stood from his chair and unbuttoned his pants as Clint went down to his knees.

"Open wide, Agent Barton."

Rational Clint fled as far back into his corner as he could, as far away from the reality in front of him as he could. He forced himself to think of Natasha. He saw himself fighting side by side with her as partners. He saw her laugh, actually laugh on one of their days off.

In between the images of Natasha and bouts of choking, he realized something. He couldn't survive without her. He was in love with her.

It strengthened him, strengthened his resolve. He saw her sitting at her desk, cleaning her weapons. He saw her kicking his ass when she found out he'd told Loki-

Stop. He just repeated her name, like a mantra.

Natasha Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff.

Natasha. Natasha. Natasha.

Tasha. Tasha.

 _Tasha_ …


	2. Chapter 2

"Barton! BARTON! Clint! Wake up!"

Natasha Romanoff did not openly ever worry, nor did she ever panic. Seeing her partner moan and cry out her name in his sleep though, face and body contorted in a nightmare?

That nearly made her do both.

Carefully, she reached out a hand, across the space between the army cot and his bed, and touched Clint's shoulder. A feeling she couldn't really describe raced through her as he flinched away from her touch. But as he whimpered, she realized what it was.

The Black Widow was about to cry.

"Clint, please-" her voice broke. "Please, wake up." She rested her hand lightly on his arm. "Please Clint, wake up. For me, please!" She shook him once, hard, and his eyes flew open. In the space of a breath, he'd flipped both of them onto the floor between the two beds. He was on top of her, hands around her throat.

His hands. Squeezing.

"Clint, wha- What are you doing?" She gasped as his hands tightened more. She just managed to wheeze out, "Clint?"

She didn't want to hurt him, but if he didn't stop in the next two seconds, she would kick his ass. Hard. Then she saw his eyes. His pupils were so large they appeared black.

"Clint, you're hurting me." Slowly, he blinked, then seemed to come back to himself slightly.

"Tasha?" The pressure on her neck eased itself immediately. As Nat coughed and started to breathe again, Clint looked at his hands in horror. He sat up and leaned against his SHIELD-issued bed and buried his face in his hands, elbows on his knees.

"My God, Tasha… I'm so sorry. I… I wasn't seeing you."

"I figured." Rubbing her throat lightly, Natasha sat up. "Wanna talk about what you _were_ seeing?"

"No."

"Clint-"

"Nat, I said no."

"Fine, _Barton_. You don't want to talk about why, in the week since Thor went back to Asgard, I've woken you up from a nightmare six nights out of the seven?" she snorted, despite the pain it caused in her neck. "Fine. I'll just go back to sleeping in my own room again, instead of this stupid cot in here. I'll-"

"Don't go." His voice was ragged. "Please, Tash. Don't go. Please… help me."

Her heart broke for him.

"I can't help you if you refuse to tell me what's wrong." Natasha tucked a strand of flyaway red hair behind her ear. "Just please, tell me what's going on inside that thick skull of yours."

Clint dropped his hands from his face and sighed. He leaned his head back against the edge of the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"I keep… I'm back at Loki's base. Some of them start out different, but I always wind up back in this one room." He ran his right hand through his hair and down his face, rasping against his stubble, sighing again. "Loki's bedroom."

Nat blinked and sat up straighter. Was Clint saying what she thought he was saying?

"Sometimes he's questioning me about why I only shot Fury in the chest instead of the head. Sometimes he's torturing me with images of him torturing you. Either way, they wind up the same; me down on my knees, Loki's pants down around his ankles."

He was saying what she thought he was.

If Natasha hadn't been watching for it, she never would have seen the sole tear slide down Clint's cheek. And if she hadn't been looking for the tear, she never would have heard him mutter,

"I wish he would have just killed me instead."

Natasha's jaw dropped. She didn't think she'd made any noise, but she must have because Clint's head whipped around like she'd fired a weapon.

"I don't want your pity, Nat. If that's all you've got to offer, then there's the door." He pointed with one hand between the two beds, then sniffed in an audible breath, waiting for her response.

Nat thought about her answer before she said anything.

"You know I'm not good with… with feelings. I… I honestly don't know what I'm feeling right now. I know it's not pity. I feel… anger. At Loki, for what he did. At you for not telling me this a week ago-"

"I didn't tell you because-"

"I don't care _why_. We're partners. You know everything about what happened to me at Red Room, everything that could compromise me on a mission. I know it took awhile, but now that we both know everything about one another, I should have heard about this right after we sent Loki back. We're _partners_."

Clint was silent. Natasha took that as her cue to continue.

"I know it's hard to talk about," she placed a hand on his arm and tried not to feel like she'd been punched in the gut when he flinched. "But you have to talk about it. It _will_ help you sleep better. I know." She took a deep breath. "You know why I haven't bitched about you wanting me to sleep in your room? When I found out you'd been… compromised, I felt like… like a part of _me_ had been taken."

She leaned back against the mattress next to him. "I keep having… feelings. Feelings I don't know the name for. All I know is that you're in the middle of them. I don't know if I like that yet or not. But… promise me you won't leave me to sort all of this out myself."

.0.o.0.o.0.

Clint could hardly believe his ears. Was Nat having… feelings? For him? The same feelings he had for her?

He looked into her eyes.

"Well, maybe I can sort some of those feelings out for you."

He leaned in and kissed her gently, chastely on the lips. Then he backed up and looked at the expression on her face. It was unreadable.

"I- I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

She cut off his protests with a kiss of her own.

"Sealed it with a kiss." She whispered against his lips, their foreheads touching.

Clint ran a hesitant hand through her hair. She met his gaze, hand on his cheek.

They kissed again.


End file.
